Clinical Skills & Simulation Center

Photo courtesy of Laerdal

Benjamin Dart, MD, Medical Director (423-778-7695)

One of the unique elements of the UT College of Medicine Chattanooga is a state-of-the-art Clinical Skills and Simulation Center that houses both a surgical skills lab and a human patient simulation lab. Both sections of this center provide an innovative and progressive facility with stimulating educational experience in a multidisciplinary learning environment in which residents, practicing physicians, and allied health professionals can train and learn to provide better patient care. Dr. Benjamin Dart is the Medical Director for the Clinical Skills and Simulation Center.

"It is good to have this vital educational element available to our students, residents, and practicing staff at our institution," according to Dr. R. Phillip Burns, Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery and original Medical Director for the Medical Surgical Skills Laboratory. "Skills training has become more and more frequently required by credentialing agencies such as the Residency Review Committee as an important part of medical education."

The Skills Lab has two state-of-the-art operating rooms (up to 12 beds), micro-surgery rooms and anatomical study room, and a classroom. Residents and practicing physicians are supervised in the acquisition of new skills and the practice of new medical techniques, including those involved with orthopaedic surgery and arthroscopy, anatomical study, surgical skills practice, microsurgery, and vascular procedures. Chattanooga residents and fellows have early hands-on experience and practice the latest general and vascular surgical techniques.

The Skils Lab facilities have enabled professors to teach new techniques and procedures including specialized courses such as Advanced Trauma Life Support, Pediatric Advanced Life Support, Laparoscopic Cholescystectomy, and GYN Laparoscopy Lasers. The Department of Surgery has even used the Clinical Skills and Simulation Center to develop an individualized training program to successfully rehabilitate physically impaired physicians.

The adjoining high-fidelity, human patient simulation lab is used to teach skills to all health care profesionals and students in a team environment. This allows medical students, residents, faculty, nurses, paramedics, physician assistants, and other allied health personnel to work in an interdisciplinary patient environment to improve patient care skills.

Studies have shown that simulation can be used to reliably measure and demonstrate resident competencies in acute care management. A simulation lab can take the form of a trauma bay, operating room, intensive care unit, emergency department, or a micro-surgery room. The accompanying classroom has audio visual equipment with computer-controlled cameras, and state-of-the-art multimedia features.

The newly opened Simulation Lab has four mannequins: adult SimMan 3G, infant, newborn, and female difficult delivery. The lifelike, electronically-controlled mannequins used in the simulation lab enable participants to practice integrated medical care. Also, other medical emergencies can be replicated, such as a drug use situation. The traditional method of bedside training does not give students as genuine an experience as working with virtual, although tangible, patients. The Simulation Lab utilizes a novel approach to education where not only medical care is taught, but an environment is created where interpersonal, teamwork, and patient-safety skills can be demonstrated and tested.